Well to start off our recent convert Jen is just awesome!!! We brought another recent convert(like 4 years ago) to a lesson with us and Jen ended up teaching and really helping the other recent convert. She just got called to be the ward Librarian and is loving it. So I'm finally feeling like we're making a presence on the NIU campus. We're starting to get noticed by a lot more people and more and more people are starting to talk to us. Its really hard because we cant stop students. We finally got our first lesson though on campus, she requested us from Mormon.org and wanted a Book of Mormon and to know more about us. We thought it was golden until she told us why she want to read. hahaha she said she is an atheist and wanted to read the bible and the book of Mormon and so on and so forth to make sure she knows why she is an atheist. It was very weird but we taught her about the restoration and the Book of Mormon and she really liked it. After the lesson she gave us some referrals of friend who would be interested and we really hope this maybe our way into the campus. Or, maybe something else will help.... because as of October 26, Dekalb is now a Facebook proselyting area!!! but more on that later!;)
Well we had a pretty cool experience with an old PNI (potential new investigator) we hadn't seen here in months. We walked up and started talking to her and she wanted us to come by the next day and have dinner! We were surprised and Elder Black didn't like it because it sounded to good to be true! We went by the next day and had an awesome lesson, we were invited back and we saw here the fallowing week and taught the plan of salvation. It went really good because she is a nurse and she has experienced a lot of death and she knew that there was life after death but didn't know where we went or what happens. We plan on seeing her this week and can't wait to teach her again! So our teaching pool got a little low and we had to tract, I don't mind it, but it normally isn't the best way to find people now days. But we happened to get some success. We found this man, he told us to come back in a week. It was so easy we almost wrote it off as not legit but we went back anyways. We got there a little late and he was already reading the bible when we got there. We got scared because we thought he just wanted to bash. He ended up being really nice and loved the lesson. He understood everything and said that he wanted to read the book of Mormon to make sure this was all legit because he was a recent convert of the Catholics and he just doesn't want to hop around church to church and what not. He gave us a return appointment and now were going to see him in a week or two, so I hope he reads and prays to know.
So this last week was a Crazy one we had Clayton Christensen the one who wrote the book the power of the everyday missionary! He was just a superstar of a teacher! It really helped us out as missionaries and as wards in the greater Chicago land area! Then on Monday we had a Zone activity at the Black Hawk statue in Oregon. It was awesome! we played capture the flag, went on a hike and had a testimony meeting and I met this old barbershop guy and he sang for us hahaha:) On Wednesday we got to do some service at Feed'em Soup. Just the coolest soup kitchen ever, so you should look it up to know why it's so cool! But, Friday was the really cool day. We got invited to an emergency leadership meeting. Only us, zone leaders, assistants and the sister training leaders were there. We were very privileged! The meeting was on missionaries getting Facebook in the Chicago West mission. So as of Friday Elder Black and I have been approved to use facebook! some cool things I learned from that meeting was that only 30 missions can have facebook and we were the 9th to get it phased in! The reason why was the bretheren said we were among the top ten most obedient missions out of the 450 missions. So moral of the story is you get blessed for being obedient!
Well on the lines of obedience I want to share with you some things Ive been learning in my personal studies. So the last week I read all of Helaman and some of 3 Nephi and I notice how much it talked about repentance and how God wants to give us so many blessings when we repent and when we don't God warns us of trails to come. I notice that God sometimes lets bad things happen, for us to remember him and to repent and change and grow closer to him. I have really noticed that in my life that as I repent God truly blesses me. I also know that as you do in your life he will bless you. I am so thankful for my Savior Jesus Christ and atoning for my sins that I can repent of them and be blessed and return to my father in heaven.
God wants to bless us, so what are you willing to do to get those blessings?
-Elder Herdt
